Vera Rubin is an observational astronomer who has studied the motions of gas and stars in galaxies and motions of galaxies in the universe for 75% of her life. Her work was influential in discovering that most of the matter in the universe is dark. She is a graduate of Vassar College, Cornell University, and Georgetown University (Ph.D.); George Gamow was her thesis professor.After as a researcher and faculty member at Georgetown, she moved in 1965 to the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution of Washington, where she is now a Senior Fellow.
She is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. President Clinton awarded her the National Medal of Science in 1993.
Rubin has also received honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Smith College, among others. In 1996, she received the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society...
